Mr. Speaker, Canadians learned yesterday that the cost of jailing an inmate rose by 25% during the first three years of this Conservative mismanagement, and Canadians still do not know the true cost of their Republican mega-prison policy. First the government said $90 million. Then it ballooned over 100 times to $11 billion.

Do they even know how much their prison policy will cost, or is this just another reckless Conservative blank cheque?

Mr. Speaker, obviously the member will not listen to what I am saying, but perhaps she will listen to what the provinces have been saying.

An NDP justice minister in Manitoba said that we are going a long way toward giving people confidence in the justice system. The Ontario attorney general, a Liberal, welcomed Wednesday's move by the federal government to end the practice of giving convicted criminals double credit for time served in pretrial custody.

We are working with the provinces in the best interests of the people that we serve, unlike the Liberal Party of Canada.

Mr. Speaker, four months after the event, the government still does not know how much its 72-hour summit blowout cost. We have unearthed $200 million in fake lakes, fiddlers, and sweet snacks, but more than $1 billion is still hidden. What is the reason? The government is still waiting for the bills. The minister says they will not arrive until December, so the minister hands out blank cheques to contractors, waits around for six months, and lets them fill in any dollar amount they want for Christmas. He is like Brian Mulroney in a Santa suit.

The minister either gets price guarantees or he does not. If he has them, let him put them on the table so we can see them.

Mr. Speaker, we are proud of our accomplishments at the G8 and the G20 summits. Canada is leading the global economic recovery as well as international efforts to aid developing countries. We have said from the beginning that these were legitimate expenses. We are waiting for our provincial and municipal partners to provide us with those bills before we pay them.

I know the Liberals are prepared to pay bills before they get them. We, however, will be responsible with the taxpayers' money.

Everyone else in the world can hold these summits without blowing the bank, but not the Conservatives. In London, Pittsburgh, Japan, and at home in Kananaskis, summits were held for a fraction of the cost. Now Korea announces that it will do security for 2% of what it cost the Conservatives. The minister's excuse is that countries are tricking us: they have secret costs. This is from the minister who wants to blow billions on prisons for unreported crimes.

If this government cannot hold 72 hours of meetings without turning it into incompetent waste, why should Canadians trust it to fix its record Conservative deficit?

Mr. Speaker, as we have said, the final costs will not be known until all of the claims are submitted and audited. The deadline for submitting final security claims will be December 1. We have said from the beginning that we welcome having the Auditor General look at those reports.

Mr. Speaker, during his testimony before the Standing Committee on Finance, the Governor of the Bank of Canada said that Timothy Hodgson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, who was appointed special adviser to the governor for a fixed period of time, will be able to return to the banking sector without a cooling-off period.

How can the Minister of Finance allow a private banker to go back to his Bay Street buddies after 18 months of unrestricted access to Bank of Canada secrets? How can he accept that?

Mr. Speaker, like the situation with the Prime Minister's new chief of staff on loan from Onex, Mr. Hodgson's situation is untenable. Both will return to the private sector with state secrets and lots of high-level contacts.

Mr. Hodgson is not stupid. He is negotiating the bank's position on derivatives, he is responsible for the central bank's relationship with the Toronto financial community and he is a member of the bank’s monetary policy review and financial system review committees

Are we supposed to believe that he will go back to the private sector overnight, forgetting everything he has seen, read and heard? Not likely.

Mr. Speaker, only sentences of less than two years can be served at home. So we are not talking about violent, dangerous offenders. Furthermore, judges who grant this measure must be convinced that it presents no risk to public safety. If a judge were to grant this measure to a violent, dangerous offender, that would clearly be grounds for an appeal.

Can the minister confirm this to be true under existing legislation and that, therefore, violent, dangerous offenders are not allowed to serve their sentences in the community?

Mr. Speaker, we have been very consistent. We believe those who commit serious violent crimes should be kept behind bars and not in the comfort of their homes.

I appreciate all these things are always opposed by the Bloc members. At least they are consistent on this. Any attempt by this government to get tough on crime is consistently opposed or delayed by the Bloc. When are those members going to get it? Crime is a problem and the Bloc should be supporting the efforts of this government on all occasions.

This kind of sentence is common in Europe. Our experiences here in Canada have been conclusive regarding their effectiveness in rehabilitating many offenders. The minister has every right to think that such sentences should be abolished or seriously limited, but to say that it is to stop violent, dangerous offenders from serving their sentences at home is simply not true.

Will the minister confirm that his bill applies only to less serious crimes, which carry sentences of less than two years?

Mr. Speaker, we are making it very clear that individuals, for instance, who set fire to somebody's house are not qualified or have it available to them be able to go to their home.

The Bloc members are very consistent on all these things, whether it is human trafficking, or just the other day, when we were getting rid of the faint hope clause, when they had an opportunity to stand up for victims. The Bloc members never do that. That is the difference between them and us. We will get the job done on behalf of law-abiding Canadians and victims in this country.

Mr. Speaker, this is the biggest borrowing, biggest spending government in Canadian history. It put the country in a deficit even before the recession. In its first three years, the government increased spending by over $32 billion, an 18% increase.

Here are its priorities: an additional $2.2 billion on outside consultants since coming to office; and in the last year alone, an additional $13 million for PMO communications.

When will this borrow-and-spend government get its reckless spending under control?